This design seems like it basically revolves around the spire, everything tapers into it and then forms it. Without it, it just looks in completed. Its like the ESB stopping at the observation deck..ugly

Someone should sneak that spire up there like they did at the Chrysler Building in 1929!

you definitely don't know Chinese people . So building only a 600 meter building is a ploy designed not to attract attention from across the border. But building the same building with a spire would set off alarm bells. So a 36 meter spire would be the difference between world reknown and total obscurity ? That must be some spire. Well that must be a load of the minds of the occupy HK crowd then knowing there are no 636 meter buildings around .

Quote:

Originally Posted by snapdragon

Honestly it makes no sense whatsoever to assume that a spire shall cause all the insecurities you talk about . I mean its almost to the point of being funny Ofcourse hkers do get their pa*ties in a jam for crazy things like OMG they are shopping at our luxury stores OMG they are shopping in our grocery stories OMG they are eating at in our restaurants and all that stuff. Still it is a far stretch to imagine anything of sort you suggesting coming about due to a spire thats 60m long.

The original intention of the ping'an was to be the tallest it was designed to be 636 mts originally just to beat out the shanghai tower 632m. later height was further rised to 660m. So this sudden bout of insecurity can't be really true

Oh, I don't for a moment think that Shenzhen's planners are having a bout of insecurity. The Futian civic axis is a monumental conception and they're including a monument to their own brilliance on that civic axis in the shape of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning. These guys have, ahem, well-developed egos. They probably did want to out-do their big rival in the high-profile urban transformation stakes, Pudong.

What a change so late in the game indicates to me is not a sudden bout of insecurity on the part of these planners but that the city government has been overruled by people more powerful with intense interests in the city, and the city is being forced to scale down its plans. Qianhai is not a Shenzhen city project; it is a national government project. It is seen as a pilot project and a model for the rest of China in terms of transforming a manufacturing economy to a services economy, which is what the national government wants to do to the national economy as a whole. Qianhai is probably too important to fail, and for that reason it may be too important to take even small risks with it.

Snapdragon, you might think that the idea that Hkers would throw their toys out of the pram at this is funny, but the 'official Communist line' (FWIW) on Occupy HK is that the protestors are upset that HK is no longer that special economically and are reacting by putting undue emphasis on the things that make them different from the rest of China, such as the freedoms allowed under the 'One Country, Two Systems' policy. (Obviously, they couldn't *possibly* want democracy for its own sake!)

If Qianhai works then not only will Shenzhen's economy overtake Hong Kong's but the two cities will be even more profoundly tied together. If you are the national government and view the Occupy movement as being a bout of Hong Kong exceptionalism, and then you see all the protests in New Territories towns about 'locust' Mainland shoppers then you might be worried about the emergence of an anti-Mainland mindset and a desire to keep Hong Kong as separate as feasible. If those attitudes were to coalesce into, say, a 'HKers invest in HK' movement then it would be very difficult indeed for Qianhai to succeed.

As to the importance of the spire, yes, I would say that having the world's second tallest building would have great symbolic value and concentrate a lot of attention from around the world on Shenzhen's emergence. And I'd say that 'Shenzhen builds a tower that's not the tallest even in its own country and is significantly smaller than planned' is nowhere near as sexy a topic for media reports. The shape of the cavity in Shanghai's 'bottle opener' building was changed pretty late on (IIRC) for purely symbolic reasons; why might the same thing not be happening with Ping'an?

I'm not saying that if Ping'an builds the world's second biggest tower then the scales will fall from the eyes of Hong Kongers and they will see that Shenzhen is nearly overtaking them, just that it might be a risk not worth taking for national government officials schooled in the doctrine of the 'peaceful (i.e. non-antagonistic) rise.

This theory would seem to explain a number of puzzles: why the city might at this late stage suddenly lack the power to complete the tower as planned; why political sensitivities about Shenzhen's status might be higher right now, and why they might be important; and why the government might be forced to invent a BS excuse.

Wow, all of these theories about why the spire was nixed - full of complex machinations! I still think it's a financial decision by the company - saving money/time by not building a complex spire on top of a large, sweeping hall atop the building.

Cancelling the Moscow Federation Tower's spire seems to have been about saving money... I think the same thing happened here.

Wow, all of these theories about why the spire was nixed - full of complex machinations! I still think it's a financial decision by the company - saving money/time by not building a complex spire on top of a large, sweeping hall atop the building.

Cancelling the Moscow Federation Tower's spire seems to have been about saving money... I think the same thing happened here.

Not building the spire, and giving up the status of tallest building in China, will turn out as a net economic loss many times worse than the expenses for building the spire. Federation tower's spire was to be a building in itself, way more expensive than PA's. Anyway FT's building companies, Mirax and its followers-on, always were tight on money. Ping An is not.

Plus, the spire design reminded me of 100 year old projects, totally outdated.

I have to say that I really liked the design and the fact that it was somehow traditional. I think Shenzhen has enough buildings with modern futuristic designs so that a building design that looks like it could be 100 years old is a nice variety.

Its probably real but I do think Ping An is currently lobbying for a height increase,this kind of thing isnt unheard of though with Canton tower in Guangzhou also getting a minor height decrease from 610m to 600m.

I think it looks alright, but the change in cladding was worse imo than the spire cut. The early renders looked fantastic, now it's still pretty good but I think China's other megatalls will turn out better.

I totaly agree with this!
I understand that's a problem for many friends here the spire won't be added.
But what i don't get is the entensity of rejection about it. As if it would change the whole building completely

Quote:

Someone should sneak that spire up there like they did at the Chrysler Building in 1929!

Comparing this boring and simple spire to the Art Deco masterpiece of the Chryler Building...oh boy...

You mean it just manages to be a mega tall and we are only sure the upper cap is 600m so very easily it could end up at 599.5

So? It's only here on skyscrapercity that we classify mega tall as 600+ meters. There is not even a reason other than that it's double that of a super tall (which is also a definition made up by skyscraperfans here)

Thet fact you want it to be 600(+) is only because of statistics and bragging rights. For the eye, it doesn't matter if it's 601 or 599 meters. Nobody else in the world is using the 600 meter mark for anything.